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On this page: Bebaioseos Dike – Bema – Bendideia – Beneficium – Beneficium Abstinendi

BENDIDEIA.

which the portions of the palm-leaf are interlaced with great neatness and regularity, the sewing and binding being effected by fibres of papyrus. The three holes may be observed for the passage of the band and ligature already mentioned. [J. Y.]

BEBAIOSEOS DIKE an action to compel the vendor to make a good title, was had recourse to when the right or pos­ session of the purchaser was impugned or disturbed by a third person. A claimant under these cir­ cumstances, unless the present owner were inclined to fight the battle himself (auTO//a%eiV), was re­ ferred to the vendor as the proper defendant in the cause (els TrpccTTjpa avdyziv). If the vendor were then unwilling to appear, the action in question was the legal remedy against him, and might be resorted to by the purchaser even when the earnest only had been paid. (Harpocrat. s. v. Auro/xaxeo/, Begataxns1.) From the passages in the oration of Demosthenes against Pantaenetus that bear upon the subject, it is concluded by Heraldus (Animad. in Salm. iv. 3. 6) that the liability to be so called upon was inherent in the character of a vendor, and therefore not the subject of specific warranty or covenants for title. The same critic also con­ cludes, from the glosses of Hesychius and Suidas, that this action might in like manner be brought against a fraudulent mortgager. (Animad. in Salm. iv. 3. in fin.) If .the claimant had established his right, and been by the decision of the dicasts put in legal possession of the property, whether movable or otherwise, as appears from the case in the speech against Pantaenetus, the ejected purchaser was entitled to sue for reimbursement from the vendor by the action in question. (Pollux, viii. 6.) The cause is classed by Meier (Att. Process. p. 526) among the sikcu irp6s Ttj>a, or civil actions that fell within the cognizance of the thesmo- thetae. [J. S. M.]

BEMA (/3$7jU,a), the platform from which the orators spoke in the Athenian eKicXycria, is de­scribed under ecclesia. It is used by the Greek writers on Roman affairs to indicate the Roman tribunal. (See e. g. ljlut. Pomp. 41.)

BENDIDEIA (B6j/5i'5«a), a festival celebrated in the port town of Peiraeeus in honour of Bendis, a Thracian divinity, whose worship seems to have been introduced into Attica about the time of Socrates, for Plato (De Re Publ. init.) introduces Socrates giving an opinion on the Bendideia, and saying that it was then celebrated for the first time. It was celebrated on the 20th, or according to others, on the 19th of Thargelion. (Schol. ad Plat. 'Repul. i. p. 354 ; Proclus, ad Plat. Tim. pp. 9—27.) The festival resembled, in its cha-

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BENEFICIUM.

racter, those celebrated in honour of Dionysus (Strab. x. p. 470), though Plato (1. c. p. 354) men­ tions only feasting ; but the principal solemnities seem to have consisted in a procession held by the Thracians settled in Peiraeeus, and another held by the Peiraeans themselves, which, according to Plato (De Re Publ. init.), were held with great decorum and propriety, and a torch race on horse­ back in the evening. The Athenians identified Bendis with their own Artemis (Hesych. s. v. BeVSw), but the temple of Bendis (Bev5i5etoj/) at Peiraeeus was near that of Artemis, whence it is clear that the two divinities must have been dis­ tinct. (Xenoph. Hellen. ii. 4. § 11 ; comp. Liv. xxxviii. 41 ; Ruhnken, ad Tim. Gloss, p. 62; Clin­ ton, F. H. vol. ii. p. 402, 3d edit.) [L. S.]

BENEFICIUM ABSTINENDI. [herbs.]

BENEFICIUM, BENEFICIA'RIUS. The word beneficium is equivalent to feodum or fief, in the writers on the feudal law, and is an interest in land, or things inseparable from the land, or things immovable. (Feud. lib. 2. tit. 1.) The beneficiarius is he who has a beneficium. The word beneficium often occurs in French historical documents from the fifth to the ninth century, and denotes the same condition of landed property, which at the end of the ninth century is denoted by feodum. From the end of the ninth century the two words are often used indifferently. (Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, vol. iii. p. 247.) The term benefice is also applied to an ecclesiastical preferment. (Ducange, Gloss.)

The term beneficium is of frequent occurrence in the Roman law, in the sense of some special privi­lege or favour granted to a person in respect of age, sex, or condition. But the word was also used in other senses, and the meaning of the term, as it appears in the feudal law, is clearly derivable from the signification of the term among the Romans of the later republican and earlier imperial times. In the time of Cicero it was usual for a general, or a governor of a province, to report to the treasury the names of those under his command who had done good service to the state: those who were included in such report were said in beneficiis ad aerarium deferri. (Cic. Pro Arch. c. 5, Ad Fam. v. 20, and the note of Manutius.) It was required by a Lex Julia that the names should be given in within thirty days after the accounts of the general or governor. In beneficiis in these passages may mean that the persons so reported were considered as persons who had deserved well of the state, and so the word beneficium may have reference to the services of the individuals; but as the object for which their services were reported, was the benefit of the individuals, it seems that the term had re­ference also to the reward, immediate or remote, obtained for their services. The honours and offices of the Roman state, in the republican period, were called the beneficia of the Populus Romanus.

Beneficium also signified any promotion con­ferred on or grant made to soldiers, who were thence called beneficiarii; this practice was com­mon, as we see from inscriptions in Gruter (Ii. 4, cxxx. 5), in some of which the word beneficiarius is represented by the two letters B. F. In this sense we must understand the passage of Caesar (De Dell. Civ. ii. 18) when he speaks of the magna beneficia and the magnae clientelae of Pompeius in Citerior Spain. Beneficiarius is also used by Caesar {De Bell. Civ, i. 75), to express the per-